What to look for if something's missing

By David A. Greene

My Son's Friend , who was visiting our home, lost the keys to his car. The two of them had roamed all over the place, in the woods and on the property next door. As we looked for the keys, we returned to all the places where the two had been—even to the woodpile where they had been splitting wood—but to no avail.

All this searching wasn't getting us anywhere. There had to be a better way. I had heard of lost objects being found through prayer. So I decided to call a friend who is in the full-time practice of Christian Science healing. As I talked with her, I could see that she wasn't worried about something missing. Her approach didn't center on our retracing our steps, or on placing lost-and-found notices. It was, instead, a metaphysical approach. She encouraged me to think less about the lost keys, and more about the idea that they represented. She suggested that I resolve "things into thoughts." That phrase is part of a comment from Science and Health, a textbook about spiritual healing. It says: "Metaphysics resolves things into thoughts, and exchanges the objects of sense for the ideas of Soul.

"These ideas are perfectly real and tangible to spiritual consciousness," the passage goes on to say, "and they have this advantage over the objects and thoughts of material sense,—they are good and eternal" (p. 269). I prayed to understand that the qualities the keys represent are always present.

The next morning, my wife, my son, and his friend resumed their search while I read the weekly Bible Lesson in the Christian Science Quarterly. As I was studying the spiritual truths in the Lesson, I had a clear sense that the keys were in a clump of grass beside a pond next to where we live.

When I finished reading, I got up and went outside. I walked right to that clump of grass, picked up the keys, and took them to my son's friend. I felt that I'd experienced the truth of Jesus' words "For there is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed; neither hid, that shall not be known" (Luke 12:2). These words comfort us when something important seems to be missing from our lives. They are more than comforting, though. I believe they point to a fundamental truth that's provable in our everyday experience.

I had a clear sense that the keys were in a clump of grass beside a pond next to where we live.

Since this experience with the keys, I have frequently seen the practicality of exchanging "the objects of sense" for "the ideas of Soul." Like my friend the practitioner, I have learned not to accept that anything good can really be lost. I remember when a houseguest lost the crystal out of his watch. Whenever I thought about that crystal, I affirmed that although I couldn't see it with my eyes, the good that it represented could never be missing. My friend came back later and found it in the toilet tank. The top had been off when he was visiting, and the crystal had popped into the tank.

It doesn't matter what seems to be lost—whether it's keys, a crystal—or whether it's joy, health, or strength. The spiritual qualities that are the true substance of whatever appears to be missing have their source in God, and therefore can never be lost.

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WHEN MY CAR WAS STOLEN

July 31, 2000

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